Celia's Gift
by ExternalTwin
Summary: Celia, who until this time didn't know about wizards, comes to Hogwarts under strange circumstances during the time of the Marauders. She's 15 and it's her first year. She's got some catching up to do!
1. Default Chapter

Celia Hagerty sat on the couch in her living room reading a book when she was interrupted by a scream, a curse and loud thump.

A ragged, "bloody hell," had issued from the kitchen where her mom had been preparing dinner.

"What on earth..." Celia muttered as her own words were echoed from the kitchen. She rounded the corner and stopped abruptly, surprised at what she saw. Her mom stood in the far corner of the kitchen staring doggedly at an object that had obviously upset her. The 'thump' Celia had heard could be explained by the plastic container tha thad slipped out of her mother's hands in surprise. And there on the countertop in all its glory was the object of her mother's firght: the biggest barn owl Celia has ever seen.

"Celia, darling," here her mother cleared her throat, "There's...ummm...a...uh... a letter for you, dear."

"A letter, mom?" _Looks more like an animal to me mom_, she thought. Her mother shot her a glance and continued.

"Yes, a letter has come along with this, well, owl." Her mother looked more perplexed by the minute.

Celia cautiously approached her mother and took the letter from her seemingly calm hands for all the worry that was radiating from her. As she opened it, the owl hooted, causing her mother to flinch, and sailed out of the window above the sink, where it had apparently entered the unknowing household.

The letter turned out to be her admission notice for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Later that evening, when Celia's father returned home from work, Celia and her mother announced their daytime discovery to her father.

After inspecting the letter he muttered, "Hogwarts? But she's much too old, she's nearly fifteen, why, how could this have happened...very curious...very strange indeed."

For the second time that day, Celia's mother was dumbfounded. "Jonathan Seamus Hagerty, is there something you need to say, _darling?_"

"Huh? What?" he said, stumbling out of his thoughts. "Oh yes, I suppose it is time, isn't it. Come, let's sit down. I _do_ have something of consequence to say.

"Celia, angel, Catherine, love of my life, I – am a wizard." At their shocked looks, he carefully continued. "I myself attended Hogwarts when I was young and it is a fine school. Indeed, Celia, when you turned eleven and no word came from Hogwarts, I thought that you might have been passed over for the wizarding...gifts as it were. Obviously there is something wrong in the headmaster's office if you've gotten your letter today. Something we need to look into. I think I'll take the rest of the week off and we'll go and see him together."

At all this Celia nodded calmly and accepted her father's decisions, wanting herself to take immediate action. While she had a ton of questions, she knew her father well enough to know that they would all be answered in time. It was enough at the moment to know that she, Celia Beatrice Hagerty, was a witch. But when she looked to her mother, her heart froze and her stomach dropped. Her mother was staring coldly at her father as though he were a complete stranger accosting her in her own home.

"Celia," he father said slowly, "Your mom and I need to talk. Why don't you go upstairs and wait for us to come up later and make plans for the week."

"Sure, Da. I'll umm see you in a minute, or two," and with that she walked calmly out of the living room until she was out of sight, then dashed up the stairs not wanting to hear even a minute of her parents fighting. She knew from her best friend that even hearing the fight could hurt you deeply. And right now she felt like she was the cause of this one.

She shut her door and turned on her stereo just loud enough to drown out any voices from downstairs but not loud enough for them to come up and tell her to shut it off.

She slumped back on her bed and thought about all she knew about her parents and how much that had changed in just a few minutes.

Her mom, Catherine McCarthy Hagerty, was a tall Irish beauty, born and raised in her native Ireland. It was from her, Celia knew, without a doubt, that she got her looks. Catherine Hagerty had passed down to her daughter her deep red and silky hair. Jonathan often joked and said it was the most sought after hair in all of Ireland and that fact was probably true. Celia's hair fell to the middle of her back, no short length, as she stood just under six feet tall. Her complexion was clear, her skin a creamy color and her heritage had spared her the curse of freckles with a mere light dusting of the Irish moniker. She was proud of her body, even if it wasn't perfect but Celia never cared much to worry about her figure.

From her father, or 'Da' as she liked to call him, she had inherited shining eyes that seemed to absorb the color of the clothes she wore. Such as when she wore her favorite deep green sweater, she could almost watch in the mirror as her irises grew to a dark green. Or when she wore a bright blue shirt, her eyes would change to a clear blue. When she wore plain white or lighter colors, her eyes would take on a grey-almost silver-hue. Otherwise her eyes varied between these spectral colors. Her Da had the same chameleon-like eyes and it was something she cherished. She was happy and that's what counts. Or so she thought.

Now it turns out that she was a wizard..."_er...witch_." And her father was one also. "_A wizard that is._"

"_Well that solves one problem, doesn't it, C. I didn't want to go to that secondary school anyway. Not since Ally moved away. Although she'd probably get a big kick out of this. Wow. A witch. How scary. Changes a few things though. _

"_How awful," _she thought, "_I will never be able to view Halloween the same again." _Catherine laughed at the inane thought then sighed and focused on the immediate future.

"_Wonder what Mom and Da are talking about. I guess the only thing to do right now is pray that Mom sees some reason in Da's actions. Though the silly git should have told her sooner. Should have told both of us. Especially since he apparently expected me to follow in his magical footsteps."_

"Oh," she said out loud, "Magic. I suppose this means I'll be able to pull rabbits out of big hats and magically make various things disappear.

"But that's silly tricks. I wonder what _real_ magic means. Could I make stuff appear, _really, _without it being phony and showy?"

"_Hmmm,"_ she thought, "_This could be serious."_

Meanwhile downstairs, things were at a standstill. Catherine couldn't figure out which question she should ask first.

"_That's probably a good thing,"_ she thought, "_I might not be able to say anything without screaming at the ignorant, stupid, good-for-noth-"_

"Catherine?" He began timidly. "Aren't you going to say anything, Kitty?"

She still fumed silently, sitting rigid on the couch. He sat forward in his seat.

"Really, Cat, I didn't mean to keep it from you. I didn't know how to say it, what to say exactly. I didn't want you to look at me differently...like you're doing now.

"Oh what a mess," he said, laying his face into his hands.

"Yes," she said finally, "It's quite a mess." Catherine had made her decision. She just hoped now that she could live with it.

Jonathan peered up at her through his hands hopefully.

"Why didn't you tell me, Jonny?" She moved to sit on the arm of his chair. She laid a hand on his back and said, "Did you ever really love me?"

"Of course," he said, sitting up and pulling her gently into his lap. "I loved you from the moment I saw you, slinging dirt in that god forsaken garden you were trying to save. I loved you when you tended bar, I loved you when you cooked for us, I loved you when you stood at the back door every morning at dawn and watched the light cover the land while the sun rose at your back.

"I've always loved you. And I always will," he said hugging her tightly. Then he snuggled into her and added, "You're my kitty-cat, you always will be."

Catherine sighed and leaned back into him. Her trust was shaken but deep in her heart she knew that this man was her one and only and far be it from her to change God's will. "I never knew you watched me watch the sun rise," she murmured. As he spoke, Catherine had relived those moments in her young life when she tended a bed and breakfast in Ireland and occasionally filled in at the pub. It was there she had me Jonathan while he traveled with several of his classmates during the summer. He was a British student touring the island on a learning-vacation just out of school and they fell in love during his weeklong stay in her family's bed and breakfast. After that he stayed in Ireland just to be near her.

The young Irish girl had never been in love before and this handsome Brit had swept her off her feet in a matter of days. They had waited a respectable amount of time to get married so her parents wouldn't feel put–off by the "fast-talking Usurper from that place over the water." Unfortunately they managed to do just that since their idea of a respectable waiting period was just over a month. But she knew their love was true and ever present in their sweet daughter Celia.

Now however was a rough point in their relationship. He had essentially lied to her and that jarred her to the bone. Though he argued his reasons as valid, the fact that he thought he couldn't come to her and tell her something that obviously took up a big part of his life really took the breath out of her. She had never even suspected tht he kept something from her.

She sighed again and listened as he began to talk about his life at Hogwarts and all he had learned there. She stopped him just after he started on how the summer of his eleventh year was the best ever, second to the one where he met her of course, since it was then he learned he had been accepted to the wizarding school.

"You were eleven when you started? Was that unusually early, Jon? Why is Celia starting so late? And where on earth do we get her school things? Does the school supply them?" Here were all the questions she had held off.

"Yes, I was eleven, no it's not early and I don't know why Celia's letter is late. _That's_ why it's imperative we speak to the headmaster immediately. Who signed the letter, by the way?"

"Umm... a Professor M. McGonagall. Says she's Deputy headmistress"

"Well, then, we'll just owl her back and arrange a meeting."

"Did you say owl, Jon?"

"Yes, why?"

"This huge, feather-dropping bird flew into the kitchen earlier today, scaring the wits out of me, to deliver C's letter. I had never seen such a thing much less expected it in my house, DURING THE DAY!!"

"Well, they're trained to answer the call of their owner but I daresay that it should be trained not to sneak up on muggles like that. Probably having a little fun-"

"Sneak up on what? What's a miggle?"

"Not a 'miggle, ' Cat, a _muggle_. And that's you. What the wizarding folk call a non-magical person.

"Oh. Well then. I see I have a lot to learn about this side of you, don't I?" she said, leaning into him.

"You and C can learn together, Cat. There's a whole other side to life that you never knew existed. But first I think we should go talk to our daughter."

With that they extricated themselves from the chair and went up the stairs to Celia's room.

Well, there you go. Tell me what you thought, eh? ...


	2. ch 2

The dawn of the day before Celia's first day of Hogwarts was like none she had ever seen before. Well she hadn't really seen many dawns to compare it to, really, but as sunrises go, Celia was sure this one was one of the best.

She lay on her bed watching the darkness slowly dispelled as sunlight warmed through the windows. Unable to go to sleep, Celia thought back on the last week and a half when she got her letter. She and her parents had talked at length and now the family was as close as ever and excited about this new turn of events. They had visited Professor McGonagall and discovered that she had no explanation for the lateness of her letter. Apparently the letters to the first year students were magically generated based on the students receptiveness to all things magical. The best conjectures she had were that, A: there had been a mistake (highly unlikely) or B: that the spell had seen fit to include her this year rather than at the accustomed age. There were no rules specifying the age of incoming students though they generally were the same age.

With this information and after a tour witha less-than-agreeable Filch, Celia and her parents had returned home, thoroughly perplexed. Well her parents, anyway, Celia was still spinning with the floo powder. They decided to get Celia's school things the day before the train left and to stay over night in Diagon Alley. Meanwhile, they spent the rest of the week discussing the magical world, often with Celia and her mother asking questions about her father's heritage and her dad carefully explaining and launching into stories of his own days at Hogwarts.

Most of the time, however, they sat talking about why Celia was being introduced into the world of wizarding so late. Her father thought maybe her letter had gotten lost. But then he reminded himself that no self-respecting owl would fail to deliver a letter he was instructed to deliver. Her mother thought quite rightly that some people just needed a little extra time before coming to terms with their true selves. This thought caused Celia the most trouble and she had therefore made up her mind to wait and see what would happen because she could come up with no explanation on her own. Her parents eventually resigned themselves to this fact as well.

So it was with a light, if somewhat nervous, heart that Celia packed a trunk her father had given her. She couldn't wait to get her school books and "school supplies," though these weren't the school supplies she was used to getting at the end of every summer.

Celia's alarm clock went off and she realized she must have dozed off while deep in thought. She rolled out of bed and pulled on the clothes she had already set out thinking that soon she would be wearing school robes like her the ones her dad had shown her in some oddly active photos of him and his old school chums. She wandered into the kitchen and sat down to the breakfast her mom was preparing. The first day off school breakfast was always a big one and even though it was the day BEFORE the day before school, Celia's mom was cooking today since they'd be in Diagon Alley tomorrow.

Breakfast was largely quiet as Celia was thinking about her new school, her mom was wondering how she was going to let her baby go off to what was essentially a boarding school, merely of the wizarding kind and Celia's dad was thinking about his time at Hogwarts and what all of his old friends were doing now.

Soon they were off, flooing right outside of the Leaky Cauldron. Celia gave a dubious glance at the façade of the building but her father just walked right in. They got a room and put away their things before venturing out into the crowded market atmosphere. Celia offered her father yet another disbelieving glance when he marched purposefully up to a brick wall. She was a little more than amazed when after a few well placed taps, they were shown a bustling street lined closely with wizarding shops.

A.N. I know it's short but I wanted to get this written before I moved on. There's more coming but I think I'll put it in the next chapter rather than adding on to this one. C-ya.


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